POULTRY NOTES. 185 



may be usedi or even unbleached cotton cloth in localities where 

 the outside temperature is not too low. 



The: Abandonment of the Roosting Ceoset. 



In the curtain front type of house used at this Station a 

 feature of the original plan on which considerable stress was 

 laid was the canvas curtain in front of the roosts.* This cur- 

 tain, together with the back wall of the house and the drop- 

 pings board under the roosts formed a closet in which the birds 

 were shut up at night during cold weather. When the curtain- 

 front house was first devised it was thought essential to pro- 

 vide such a closet to conserve the body heat of the birds during 

 the cold nights when the temperature might go well below zero. 

 Experience has shown, however, that this was a mistake. 

 Actual test shows that the roosting closet is of no advantage, 

 even in such a severe climate as that of Orono. On the con- 

 trary the birds certainly thrive better without the roost curtain 

 than with it. It has been a general observation among users 

 of the curtain front type of house that when the roost curtains 

 are used the birds are particularly susceptible to colds. It is 

 not hard to understand why this should be so. The air in a 

 roosting closet when it is opened in the morning is plainly bad. 

 The fact that it is warm in no way offsets physiologically the 

 evils of its lack of oxygen and excess of carbon dioxide, am- 

 moniacal vapors and other exhalations from the bodies of the 

 birds. 



For some time past it has been felt that the roosting closet 

 was at least unnecessary, if not in fact a positive evil. Conse- 

 quently the time of beginning to close the roost curtain in the 

 fall has been each year longer delayed. Finally in the fall of 

 1910 it was decided not to use these curtains at all during the 

 winter. Consequently they were taken out of the house, or 

 spiked to the roof as the case might be. The winter of 1910-11 

 was a severe one. On several occasions the temperature 

 dropped to 30 degrees below zero. Yet during this winter the 

 mortality was exceptionally low and the egg production excep- 

 tionally high. The roost curtain will not again be used at this 

 Station. 



See Farmers Bulletin 357. 



